This invention relates to an automobile transporting trailer having spaced apart lower and upper decks, upon which automobiles may be positioned for transportation, and where the uppermost deck is repositionable relative to the lower deck, from a spaced apart position to a fully retracted position, allowing the trailer to be converted for transporting cargo other than automobiles.
Transportation of automobiles on trailers specifically designed for this purpose is well known. Generally, such trailers have a lower and upper decks which support a number of vehicles on each deck. The upper deck on most trailers can be slightly raised from a lower or loading position to an upper or transporting position. Vehicles are usually driven on to the upper deck over stowable ramps and articulatable deck portions when the upper deck of the trailer is in the lower or loading position. This lower or loading position helps minimize the incline of the loading ramps. Once the upper deck is loaded, it is elevated to the upper or transporting position which provides sufficient clearance for vehicles to be loaded onto the lower deck.
The prevalent disadvantage to the design of such trailers is that on backhaul, without cargo, they must be transported singly in a vertically extended position since they either cannot be fully collapsed or loaded one on top of the other. Further, the present design of such trailers does not make the transportation of goods normally transported by flatbed highway trailers practicable.
As stated by Blodgett in U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,222, the degree of success achieved by a multi-purpose truck depends to a large extend on how compactly the automobile storage deck assembly can be stored when it is not in use. In addition, acceptance of such a truck is affected to a large degree by how easily the truck can be converted from one carrying mode to the other. It is an object of the present inventing to provide a convertible trailer which is compact when in a flat-deck trailer mode, and which may be quickly and easily converted between the flatdeck trailer mode and a double-decker vehicle carrying mode, and which is capable of carrying very heavy freight when in the flat-deck trailer mode.
Applicant is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. 5,332,345 which issued to Lillard on Jul. 26, 1994 for a Vehicle Carrier. Lillard discloses articulatable upper and lower vehicle platforms mounted to a common chassis. An array of upper vehicle platforms are disposed along the length of the chassis, mounted over a corresponding array of lower vehicle platforms. When the upper platforms are adjacent. It is not taught nor suggested that the upper platforms rest or bear on the rails of the chassis along the length of the platforms.
The present invention is a convertible cargo transporting trailer. The trailer has lower and upper decks disposed in vertically spaced apart general parallel alignment. The upper deck can be extended above the lower deck from a fully retracted position, where the upper deck is nested on the lower deck, to an intermediately extended position, where loading of the upper deck is facilitated, to a fully extended position to accommodate loading of the lower deck. Once loading of the trailer is completed, the overall vertical distance between the upper deck and vehicles positioned on the lower deck surface may be adjusted by slightly lowering the mid portion of the upper deck into a suitable transportation position.
The upper deck, when in its fully retracted position, can be utilized for the transportation of heavy equipment and cargo and in an intermediately extended position can be utilized for the transportation of palletized or containerized goods and equipment on each of the decks.
Put another way, my invention includes an upper rigid deck and a lower rigid deck, wherein the upper deck is selectively elevatable by elevating means so as to actuate between an upwardly extended position and a lowered position. In the upwardly extended position the upper deck is sufficiently elevated over the lower deck for carrying cargo such as automobiles on the lower deck. In the lowered position the upper deck fits so as to nest onto the lower deck thereby forming a unitary single deck cargo carrier.
In summary, the convertible vehicle transporting trailer of the present invention includes rigid upper and lower decks. The upper deck is mounted onto the lower deck by selectively actuable, releasably lockable telescopic stanchions. The stanchions are actuable by actuators so as to raise and lower the upper deck over the lower deck between a lowered position, an intermediately elevated position, and a fully elevated position.
In the fully extended position the upper deck is elevated above the lower deck so as to allow loading of vehicles or freight onto the lower deck. In the intermediately elevated position the upper deck is below the fully elevated position so as to be snugly adjacent uppermost extremities of the vehicles or freight on the lower deck.
In the lowered position the upper deck rests on a mid-section of the lower deck and on elevated wheel-wells of the lower deck, so that a mid-section of the upper deck, forward of a wheel-well covering section of the upper deck, is between the wheel-wells of the lower deck and a forward elevated section of the lower deck so as to be immediately above and resting on the mid-section of the lower deck extending between the wheel-wells and the forward elevated section. In this position an upper surface of the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck is substantially co-planar with an upper-most surface of the mid-section of the upper deck.
In the lowered position, longitudinally extending, parallel, elongate side girders of the upper deck extend from their lower girder edges resting on upper-most surfaces of correspondingly aligned and correspondingly elongate side girders of the lower deck, to an upper deck floor of the mid-section of the upper deck, that is, the side girders are of sufficient height, so that the upper deck floor of the mid-section is substantially co-planar with an upper deck floor of the wheel-well covering section. Thus heavy loads carried on the mid-portion of the upper deck cause the side girders of the upper deck to bear against and along the side girders of the lower deck. Similarly, heavy loads carried on the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck cause the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck to bear against the wheel-wells of the lower deck.
A floor of the lower deck extends between the side girders of the lower deck, in one preferred embodiment between the lower edges of the side girders. A floor of the upper deck extends between the upper deck side girders, in one preferred embodiment between the upper edges of the side girders.
A rearmost downwardly inclined section of the lower deck is mounted to the wheel-wells. A rearmost ramp section of the upper deck is mounted to the wheel-well covering section. In one preferred embodiment the rearmost ramp section is pivotally mounted to a rear edge of the wheel-well covering section and a rear actuator is mounted between the lower deck and the ramp section for selectively pivoting the ramp section relative to the wheel-well covering section. Thus when the upper deck is in the lowered position, the ramp section may be pivoted so as to be substantially co-planar with the upper deck floor of the wheel-well covering section. As with the other actuators, the rear actuator is releasably lockable so as to releasably lock the ramp section relative to the wheel-well covering section.
Advantageously the forward elevated section of the lower deck has a selectively inclinable ramp, selectively inclinable between a declined position which allows driving a vehicle from the mid section of the lower deck onto the forward elevated section, and a substantially horizontal position for carrying cargo on the forward elevated section.
Further advantageously, forwardly extendable floor members are slidably telescopically mounted in a forward end of the mid section of the upper deck for forwardly extending the upper deck over the forward elevated section of the lower deck. Rigid supports are pivotally mounted to the forward elevated section for pivoting between a lowered stowed position and an elevated, preferably vertical, position for releasable mounting to forward ends of the floor members.
In one preferred embodiment the actuators for actuating the stanchions comprise a longitudinally aligned oppositely disposed pair of actuators mounted on each of the side girders of the lower deck. Opposite ends of the oppositely disposed pair of actuators are pivotally mounted to lower ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions. The lower ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions are slidably mounted in oppositely disposed guides mounted on the side girders of the lower deck. The guides cooperate with each of the oppositely disposed pair of actuators.The upper ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions are pivotally mounted to corresponding forward and rear ends of the mid section of the upper deck. Thus, extending the actuators drives the lower ends of the stanchions oppositely along the guides, and rotates the forward and rear mid-section stanchions into preferably vertically oriented alignment.
In one aspect of the present invention the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck is pivotally mounted to the mid section of the upper deck. Thus in the embodiment wherein the wheel-well covering section is supported when elevated above the wheel-wells by non-actuable telescopic stanchions, the wheel-well section may be elevated, at least in part,by elevating the rear end of the mid section of the upper deck.